| The Workman's Compensation How can someone, hour after hour, day after day, year in and year out, tighten approximately the same nut to the same bolt and not go mad? That most working people do not, in fact, go mad is due in large measure to a phenomenon so common that it is found wherever people labor in industry: taking it easy. It would take some kind of real mental case to do all the work one could all day long. No one expects it. Taking it easy on the job while someone else covers your work, or "working on and off," as it is usually called in America, is an established part of the working life. Working on and off, however, has its limits. The rules are infinitely varied, subtle, and flexible, and, of course, they are always changing. Management, up to a certain level at least, is aware of the practice, and in some industries employs entire cadres of people to curtail or put an end to it. Simultaneously, the workers are subtly doing their best to keep it going and to extend it wherever possible. Every worker has a highly developed sense of how much work is expected of him. When he feels that the expectation is excessive, he tries to do something about it. This instinct has to do with the political nature of work itself, something every modern worker understands. The bosses want more from the worker than they are willing to give in return. The workers give work, and the bosses give money. The exchange is never quite equal, and the discrepancy is called profit. Since the bosses cannot do without profit, workers have an edge. A good worker in a key spot could, so long as he kept up production, take all the coffee breaks he wanted, and the bosses would very likely look the other way. He could also choose to cut down on the coffee breaks, apply himself, and increase production, and then ask for and get more money. But that would be self-defeating, and he knows it. It would also place him in competition with other workers, which would be playing into the bosses' hands. What he would rather do is create some slack for himself and enjoy his job more. At present on the West Coast, when a gang of longshoremen working on cargo start a shift, they often divide themselves into two equal groups and toss a coin. One group goes into the far reaches of the ship's hold and sits around. The other group starts loading cargo, usually working with a vengeance, since each one of them is doing the work of two men. An hour later, the groups change places. In other words, although my fellow longshoremen and I are getting paid for eight hours, on occasion we work only four. If someone reading this feels a sense of moral outrage because we are sitting down on the job, I am sorry. I have searched my mind in vain for a polite way to tell that reader to go to hell. If you are that reader, I would recommend that you abandon your outrage and begin thinking about doing something similar for yourself. You probably already have, even if you won't admit it. White collar office workers, too, have come under criticism recently for robbing their bosses of their full-time services. Too much times is being spent around the Mr. Coffee machine, and some people (would you believe it?) have even been having personal conversations on company time. In fact, one office-system expert recently said that he had yet to encounter a business work place that was functioning at more than about 60 percent efficiency. Management often struggles hard to set up a situation where work is done in series: a worker receives an article of manufacture, does something to it, and passes it on to another worker, who does something else to it and then passes it on to the next guy, and so on. The assembly line is a perfect example of this. Managers like this type of manufacture because it is more efficient - that is, it achieves more production. They also like it for another reason, even if they will not admit it: it makes it very difficult for the worker to do anything other than work. Frederick W. Taylor, the efficiency expert who early in this century conducted the time-and-motion studies that led to the assembly-line process, tried to reduce workers to robots, all in the name of greater production. His staff of experts, each armed with clipboard and stopwatch, studied individual workers with a view toward eliminating unnecessary movement. They soon found a great deal of opposition from the workers. Most people not directly engaged in daily work express disapproval when they hear of people working on and off. A studied campaign with carefully chosen language - "a full day's work for a full day's pay," "taking a free ride" - has been pushed by certain employers to discredit the practice, and their success is such that I rarely discuss it except with other workers. My response is personal, and I feel no need to defend it: If I am getting a free ride, how come I am so tired when I go home at the end of a shift? 工作者的補(bǔ)償 一個人怎么能時復(fù)一時，年復(fù)一年地把幾乎相同的螺帽擰到相同的螺栓上而不發(fā)瘋的呢？事實(shí)上，多數(shù)勞動者并不發(fā)瘋多半是由于"不緊不慢"的現(xiàn)象很平常，在企業(yè)中只要有人工作的地方隨處可見這種現(xiàn)象。一個人恐怕要有某種真正的精神病才能一整天竭盡全力地干活。沒人希望這樣。在別人幫你干活時，你就不緊不慢地干，也就是像美國人常說的那種"干干停停"是工作生涯的一個既定部分。 然而，干干停停有它的局限性。這些慣例的變化無休無止，很微妙、很有彈性。當(dāng)然，它們總在變。至少在一定程度上管理部門知道這種做法。一些企業(yè)雇傭干部以減少或結(jié)束這種做法。同時，工人們巧妙地、盡全力使之繼續(xù)下去并使之觸及到可能的任何地方。 每個工人對自己干多少活都是高度敏感的。當(dāng)他感到希望他做的事過多時，就會采取某些措施。這種天性與每個現(xiàn)代工人所懂得的工作本身的政治特性有關(guān)。老板希望從工人身上得到的比他們給予的要多；工人付出勞動，老板付出報酬。這個交換從來不會太平等，此差異叫做利潤。由于老板不能沒有利潤，工人們就占了上風(fēng)。一個在關(guān)鍵崗位的好工人，只要他保持產(chǎn)量不降低，可以隨心所欲地利用工間休息，而老板可能裝作沒看見。工人也可以縮短工間休息，賣力干活，增加生產(chǎn)，然后要求并得到更多的錢。但他知道那是違背自己利益的，這樣做也會將自己置于與他人競爭之中，這種競爭會有利于老板。那么，他寧愿為自己創(chuàng)造一些空閑，更好的享受工作。 目前在西海岸，從事船貨裝卸工作的一伙碼頭裝卸工開始輪班時，經(jīng)常分成兩組，然后擲硬幣決定先后順序。一組走到船艙深處分散坐下。另一組開始裝貨，通常干得賣力，因?yàn)樗麄兠咳烁芍鴥扇说幕�，一小時以后兩組交位置換。換句話說，雖然我和工友們獲得八小時的報酬，有時卻只干四小時。如果有人讀到此，為我們怠工而憤慨的話，我很抱歉。我白費(fèi)心機(jī)的絞盡腦汁想找到一個禮貌的說法，但現(xiàn)在要告訴這位讀者，讓他見鬼去吧。 如果你是那個讀者，我會勸你不要憤慨，開始為自己考慮一下類似的事情。即便你不承認(rèn)，你可能已經(jīng)想過了。近來，白領(lǐng)職員也由于不為老板全天服務(wù)而受到批評。在電煮咖啡機(jī)旁花了太多的時間。一些人甚至在工業(yè)時間進(jìn)行私人交談。事實(shí)上，一個辦公制度專家近來說，他還沒有遇到工作效率高于60%的商業(yè)網(wǎng)點(diǎn)。 管理部門經(jīng)常努力創(chuàng)建一條龍式的工作：一個人接到產(chǎn)品后為之做些什么，把它傳給另外一個工人，這個工人再做些什么，然后傳給下一個工人，如此類推。裝配線就是一個極好的例子。經(jīng)理喜歡這種生產(chǎn)方式，因?yàn)樗矢�，也就是說能生產(chǎn)出更多的產(chǎn)品來。盡管老板不會承認(rèn)，但還有另一個喜歡這種方式的原因，它使工人很難做工作以外的其他事情。 弗雷德里克·W·泰勒，是本世紀(jì)初進(jìn)行時間和運(yùn)動研究的效率專家，這種研究產(chǎn)生了裝配線工序。他試圖把工人變成機(jī)器人，只是為了更大的產(chǎn)量。他的專家組每人配有帶彈簧夾子的書寫板和秒表用來研究每個工人，使他們不能偷懶。很快他們發(fā)現(xiàn)工人們特別反對這種做法。 大多數(shù)不直接從事日常工作的人聽到人們"干干停停"地工作時，會表示不贊同。一些雇主推行了一場預(yù)先計劃的運(yùn)動，和"全天工作付全天報酬""只拿錢不干活"這些精心選擇的語言來詆毀這種做法。除了同其他工人，我很少談起他們的成功。我的回答是個人觀點(diǎn)，我感到?jīng)]必要為之辯護(hù)：拿錢不干活，我下班回家后怎么會那么累呢？ |
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